Tag Archives: modelmaking

I had a very gaming birthday this year, as not only did my awesome fiancé get me a tonne of Magic cards, he also presented me with a Premium Shaltari Mega Army complete with aluminium case. As I had a 1,000 point game planned to occur over the weekend it was time to get a wiggle on and start putting these babies together!

Not having the time to assemble everything, I decided on my army list first, then only worked on the items I needed for yesterday’s game.

The Braves were ridiculously easy to put together. Snipping them off their sprues was a bit heavy on the clippers, because the sprues were thick and these are the only metal minis in the whole army, but the figures themselves required zero clean-up. The bases had some minor flash and sprue that needed quick pruning.

Spirit gates were more fiddly, but still assembled in a matter of minutes. Some light cleanup with a knife was required, but it was absolutely minimal effort compared to your average Citadel model.

The Eden gates took the most time, largely because some of the resin was slightly warped and needed resetting with hot water. There was a lot of flash that needed scraping away, but this was easy peasy. The main problem was that the tips of the struts were merged in to the sprue joints so much that it was impossible to see where the struts ended and sprue began. As a consequence I cut too much off, and had to go digging among my offcuts to find the matching part, glue it back together, recut it in the right place, prune it down to the right shape, then assemble the gate.

Once I’d done this with one gate, though, I knew what to look out for in the remaining two.

The Coyote and Ocelot were joys to assemble. I really love these little walkers and definitely think they’re the most appealing models in the army.

All in all I assembled:

Six Braves stands

One Haven gate

Three Tomahawks

Two Yari with Microwave guns

Two Spirit gates

Three Eden gates

Two Warspears

One Coyote

One Ocelot

in the space of two and a half hours, and that’s including time to rectify my snipping error, and be excruciatingly anal about flash-pruning. An entire playable army, ready to roll the same afternoon. The resin’s even a fairly bright white-grey colour, so I didn’t feel quite so bad about playing unpainted minis.

The only thing to be wary of is how soft resin is compared to plastic. If you’re used to carving away at a mini to get it to where you want, you’re going to slice up your resin like a serial killer. Be gentle; that’s all it takes.

All right, let’s finish this beast! Part 1 covered painting the majority of the stonework; now we’re going to carry on with what’s left.

Step Four:

I got bored at this point and decided to make a base to sit the tower on. This took a little planning. I wanted a base that was large enough to stand a few minis on, but not so massive that it would be a problem to store and transport. Ultimately I cut a sheet of MDF to approximately 45x25mm and glued 25mm styrofoam to it.

The next stage was to place the model’s base in the centre and draw around it, then carve out about 3mm of depth for the base to nestle snugly into the styrofoam. This makes the setting look a little more natural, and prevents the model sliding around if a stray arm knocks it during play.

Once I was happy with the outline, I took a craft knife to the edges and began carving. This was a somewhat haphazard process, as I wanted the rock to seem authentic. At some stages I glued additional pieces of styrofoam to the MDF to create staggered layers.

To protect it from aerosol propellants and make it tough enough for play, I liberally smothered it in readymixed all-purpose filler and gave that a day to set.

Then onto the Chaos Black primer! The edges of the base were drybrushed slate to match the model, and the top was drybrushed with a variety of browns and greens to create a mud and grass effect. I wanted the ground to become increasingly dead as it neared the Tor, and finished the area nearest the outline with dead grass sprinkles and a nice dead tree. After that all it needed was layer after layer of Woodland Scenics Realistic Water with a splash of red to make it look like rivers of blood were gushing out of the cursed building! D’aww!

To make the dead tree, I shoved a toothpick in at the angle I wanted, snipped the top off to remove the point, and glued it into place. Then I added a clump of tan-coloured lichen, glueing it to the toothpick. Easy peasy. A few blobs of Scorched Brown to the toothpick gave it more of a bark colour.

Step Five:

I then got it into my head that what I really needed in here was a flickering firelight. The most arduous part was drilling through the centre of the comet in the base of the Tor – the plastic was at its thickest there. And not being remotely capable at soldering I decided to cheat and picked up a box of dirt cheap LED tealights. Disassembling one carefully, I glued the LED into the hole I’d drilled (carefully pre-measuring to make sure it was going to be a snug fit), then cut the “flame” housing and glued that in place over the LED to soften the light from it.

Step Six:

The top is painted using largely identical techniques to the base: Slate for most of the brickwork, grey for the accents, then washes of colour for the major flagstones and drybrushing lighter versions of the top. Note that the centrepiece is missing from this photo so that you can see how slack I get when I know something’s going to get covered.

Witchfate Tor, Completed:

As you can see, the levels really don’t fit together very well. I haven’t forced them – they can be a little more snug than this, but I took it gently for the photos. I’m considering taking out the floors of each storey and pinning the tower together. This’ll make it less portable, but it’ll be sturdier and look better.

Witchfate Tor is a bugger of a model. Let me just be totally up-front about that. It’s badly moulded, and if you aren’t careful you’re going to cut your hands to pieces trying to get it into shape. It also falls apart pretty easily if, for example, your cat decides to shove it off a shelf. But I have no fear, and I have painted the beast!

Step 1:

I primed each part with Chaos Black. I prefer priming before assembly with some pieces, and as Witchfate Tor is round, it worked better for me to do so this time.

Deciding on a colour scheme of slate and grey stones, I went crazy with the drybrush to start, laying down blocks of colour as a guide: Fenris Grey Foundation for the slate areas; Adeptus Battlegrey Foundation. You’ll already notice that I have pots of paint lurking around from before last year’s new range came out, but don’t worry: DakkaDakka’s Paint Compatibility Chart is here to help!

Step Three:

Time to focus on the flagstones in the base, just in case I ever want to use the base as a ruin. The entire base was painted the same slate as the majority of the brickwork, then overpainted with other colours. First a thin wash, then stippling on a thicker layer, before stippling the paint on neat (but dry). After that I made a 50/50 mix of each colour with Vallejo Bonewhite and stippled that over the lighter areas, then drybrushed the outer edges of each flagstone with it. Finally a drybrush around the edges with Skull White. All dark metallic areas are Tin Bitz, and the lighter ones are Burnished Gold, and skulls are just a drybrush of Vallejo Bonewhite.

The Completed Tower:

The floors are a tight fit, and it can feel heavy-handed forcing them to sit right, but I’m very pleased with the paint job so far.